[385] M. de Bondy's letter ran as follows:
"Monsieur le vicomte,
"I regret that I cannot accept, in the name of the City of Paris, the 12,000 francs which you have done me the honour to send me. In the origin of the funds which you offer, people would see, beneath an apparent benevolence, a political combination against which the entire population of Paris would protest by its refusal.
"I am, etc.
"The Comte de Bondy,
"Prefect of the Seine."—B.
[386] The Constitutionnel announced that M. Berger, the Mayor of the 2nd Ward, had proposed to the Princess' envoy, "a former aide-de-camp of the Duc de Berry," to give the thousand francs offered in the Duchess' name "to the widow of a combatant of July, the mother of three children, to whom this relief would be very useful." The envoy whom the Constitutionnel thus transformed into an aide-de-camp of the Duc de Berry was none other than the worthy Hyacinthe Pilorge, Chateaubriand's secretary. Pilorge at once wrote to the Quotidienne:
"Paris, 20 April 1832.
"Sir,
"M. de Chateaubriand, although suffering from illness, is at this moment occupied in writing a general reply with reference to the gift of Madame la Duchesse de Berry; this reply will appear shortly. Meantime, I owe it to the interests of truth to say that M. the Mayor of the 2nd Ward did not present the widow of a combatant of July to me and did not propose that I should give her the thousand francs; he merely refused them: that is all. M. de Chateaubriand instructs me to add that if the widow of the Constitutionnel will be good enough to call on him, he is prepared to give her a share in the bounty of the mother of the Duc de Bordeaux. You see, Sir, that I have not the honour of having been an aide-de-camp of M. le Duc de Berry and that I am only the poor and faithful secretary of a man as poor and as faithful as myself.
"Pray accept, Sir, the assurance of my most distinguished regard,
"Hyacinthe Pilorge."—B.
[387] Chateaubriand has confused the two Cadets de Gassicourt, father and son. Cadet de Gassicourt the Elder (1760-1831) wrote short verses and published two little pamphlets directed against Chateaubriand and Madame de Staël: Saint-Géran, au la Nouvelle langue française (1807) and the Suite de Saint-Géran, ou Itinéraire de Lutèce au Mont-Valérien (1811). His son, F. Cadet de Gassicourt (1789-1861), was Mayor of the 4th Ward and the individual referred to above.—B.
[388] This proclamation of Cadet de Gassicourt's was posted on the walls of Paris on the 4th of April 1832. Couched in hateful and ridiculous terms, it practically called upon the populace to murder the Carlists, "those ancient tyrants, who are capable of adopting all methods and who do not blush to have a horrible plague as their auxiliary!"—B.
[389] This was a piece of ignorant clap-trap. As the daughter of Francis I. King of the Two Sicilies, the Duchesse de Berry was entitled to be styled "Royal Highness" in France or anywhere else.—T.
[390] Referring to the traditional attitude of the surgeon-apothecary.—T.
[391] Monseigneur de Quélen. (Cf. Vol. IV, p. III, n. I.)—T.
[392] Rom. XIII. 10.—T.